In the latest of our CxO Stories series, we sat down with Reto Sahli, Group Chief Digital & Information Officer at HAVI and Managing Director of the HAVI TechHUB, to explore his route to the C-suite, the strategy behind HAVI’s global technology hubs, and why the CDIO belongs at the executive committee table.

A career in three acts

Reto is quick to dispel the myth of the linear career. “Careers are not a straight line,” he told us. His own has unfolded in three distinct chapters: hospitality management, where he learned to serve customers “better than anyone else”; a move into management consulting at PwC, which sharpened his conceptual thinking; and finally, technology leadership since 2006 – spanning roles at Kraft and Mondelez before Group CDIO positions at Asahi Europe & International and now HAVI.

The common thread is purpose. Reto describes himself as a transformation leader, hired to change businesses through technology, instead of just keeping the lights on.

Lessons learnt

Asked what he would tell his younger self, Reto was unambiguous: a career is a strategic undertaking. It has a purpose, a vision and a strategy, and it is owned by you, not handed to you. His second lesson is patience. Taking a role that overwhelms you is a bigger setback than progressing a little slower.

He also underlined the importance of sponsorship. When Kraft and Mondelez separated, Reto lost his sponsors overnight and had to rebuild that network from scratch – demanding, he admits, but doable. Tellingly, when hiring his own direct reports, he values a peer reference over a boss reference: it reveals integrity and how someone truly works within a team.

Turning around technology at HAVI

Reto joined HAVI facing a genuine turnaround: capability gaps, fragmented processes and data, cost pressure and a mandate to make the business self-sufficient. Unusually, he started not with strategy but with the organisation – without the right capability in place, no strategy could take hold.

A rigorous location analysis, assessing some 140 dimensions from talent depth to political stability, shaped the global footprint: Chicago headquarters alongside Lisbon as the main European hub, Kraków for GBS operations and Kuala Lumpur to complete round-the-clock coverage.

Lisbon is the proof point. From a barely populated serviced office, the TechHUB has grown to around 260 positions, built layer by layer – it is now home to centres of excellence in automation, integration and testing. Crucially, it was never positioned as an outsourcing office.

“We are a bunch of great people doing great things for a great company,” – a deliberately distinctive employee value proposition, grown in Portugal for Portugal. With a make-versus-buy analysis now favouring insourcing, and Kuala Lumpur ramping up, global headcount in technology hubs will rise to around 400.

His candid lessons learned? Change management, change management, change management, and strict adherence to methodology when transferring knowledge between teams. Exceptions made early are paid for later.

The CDIO’s seat at the table

Our 2025 research (LINK) found that only 12% of technology leadership appointments were formally on the executive committee, reporting directly to a CEO or president. For Reto, who sits on HAVI Supply Chain’s ExCo reporting to the president, that number should be higher. Data, process and technology belong together, he argues – separating them across multiple C-suite roles creates friction, and with AI accelerating, the CDIO is often the only person in the boardroom who genuinely understands what is coming. His prediction: consolidation, with CIO, CDO and chief AI roles converging because businesses simply cannot afford four or five C-level roles for what is essentially one remit.

AI: strategy first, spend second

Reto is unashamedly excited about AI, believing it will be bigger than the internet and move far faster. But his enthusiasm comes with a warning drawn from experience: the industry made the mistake of scattering investment across RPA and hyper-automation, leaving loose ends and runaway running costs. AI must remain a strategic undertaking, anchored in clear use cases – at HAVI, that includes exploring an agentic-AI-enabled ERP overhaul, rather than a million thrown here and there.

And the standout of it all?

After decades of transformation at global scale, Reto’s answer to what has stood out most in his career was immediate: “It’s the people.” The best strategy in the world fails without the right people around you and it is people, he says, that keep him in a company, in a role, and moving forward.

CxO Stories is a series of conversations with senior leaders in our network, exploring the reality of reaching and operating at C-suite level. Eton Bridge Partners has been proud to partner with Reto and HAVI on key leadership appointments across Europe and beyond, including more than 15 strategic hires into the Lisbon TechHUB.

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